Army Leave, V

I smoked three more cigarettes to give me some time to think and then went to see Marc.
- Hey. . .
- What?
- Marie . . .
- What?
- You have to let me have her.
- No.
- I'll punch your face in.
- No.
- Why not?
- Because this evening, you've had too much to drink and I need my pretty face on Monday for work.
- Why?
- Because I have to give a presentation on incidential fluctuations in an acquired perimeter.
- Oh?
- Yeah.
- Sorry.
- Don't worry about it.
- And Marie?
- Marie? She's mine.
- Not for sure.
- What are you talking about?
- Ah! It's the sixth sense of a soldier who has served in the artillerie.
- Sixth sense, my ass.
- Listen, I'm boxed in here, I can't do anything. It's like this, I'm an idiot, I know. So let's find a solution at least for tonight, okay?
- I'm thinking . . .
- Hurry up.
- Fooooooos. . .
- What?
- We'll play foosball.
- That's not very gallant.
- It will be between us, Mister Buttcheeks who tries to take other people's girlfriends.
- Okay. When?
- Now. In the basement.
- Now?!?!
- Oui, monsieur.
- All right, I'm going to make a cup of coffee first.
- Make me one too, please.
- No problem. I might even piss in it.
- Army cretin.
- Go warm yourself up. Tell her goodbye while you're at it.
- Shut up.
- It's not too bad, go for it. I'll console you afterwards.
- Count on it.


We drank our boiling coffee on top of the sink. Marc got down first. While he was doing that, I plunged both hands into the flour jar. I thought of my mom when she made us breaded scallops!

Now I had to take a piss, that's the worst.

Before going downstairs, I was thinking of a way to improve my chances, because if I'm a maniac at pinball, my brother is a master of foosball.

I played like a foot. The flour, instead of stopping me from sweating, just balled up into dough between my fingers.

Moreover, Marie and the others came down when he was up by six, and at that moment I let go of the handle. I felt her move in my back and my hands slid over the levers. I smelled her perfume and I forgot my offense. I heard the sound of her voice and I let in goal after goal.

When my brother slid the score marker to 10 on his side, I could finally dry my hands on my pants. My jeans were completely white.

Marc looked at me like a sincerely sorry bastard.

Happy birthday, I thought.

The girls said that they wanted to go to bed and asked to go up to their room. I said that I was going to sleep on the coach in the living room to finish drinking in peace and that no one should bother me.

Marie looked at me. I thought that if she had measured 1.29 meteres and weighed 26 kilos at the moment, I would have put her inside my shirt and carried her everywhere with me.

And then the house was finished. The lights were darkened one after another and you didn't hear anything more than some giggles here and there.

I imagined that Marc and his friends were making jokes and scratching at their door.

I whistled for the dogs and I locked the front door.

I never got around to sleeping. Obviously.

I smoked a cigarette in the dark. In the room, you couldn't see anything besides a little red point that moved every so often. And then I heard a noise. Like a piece of paper being crumpled up. I thought first that it was the dogs making noise. I called:
- Bozo? . . . Micmac?

There wasn't any response and the noise had gotten louder, scritch scritch, like taking off a piece of Scotch tape.

I got myself together and stretched my arm to turn on the light.

I am dreaming. Marie is naked in the middle of the room trying to cover herself up with wrapping paper. She had blue paper over her chest, silver on her shoulders, and ribbon on her arms. The craft paper that had covered my moto helmet that my mom gave me acted as sort of a loincloth.

She is walking half-naked in the middle of the wrapping-paper, between the full ashtrays and empty glasses.

- What are you doing?
- You don't see?
- Um, no . . . not really. . .
- Didn't you say that you wanted a present right away, when you arrived?

She was smiling the whole time and tied the red ribbon around her waist.

I got up a bit.
- Hey, don't wrap yourself, I told her.

At the same time that I said this, I asked myself if "don't wrap yourself" meant "don't cover up your skin like that, let me, please".

Or if "don't wrap yourself" meant "don't go too fast, you know, not only have I always been seasick but, what's more, I'm leaving tomorrow for Nancy like the rest of the group, so you see . . ."